Is It Possible For Apple To Sustain Its Growth Rate?

At present, Apple is sitting on hoard of cash, and why not? Anyway, it’s the world’s biggest company in terms of market valuation, surpassed $600 billion marks this year. The company is going through its best days, but it’s being threatened by Google and Samsung. The reason is quite obvious, firstly, Android is dominating in mobile OS and secondly, Samsung surpassed Apple in Smartphone shipments in the last year and became the world’s largest mobile handset manufacturer.

It’s true, Apple is dominating in Tablet segment and none of the Tablet vendors around the world even near to the company in terms of shipments. But this time, Apple is afraid with Google’s Nexus 7 Tablet. Last year, Amazon launched its Kindle Fire Tablet for $199, succeeded to eat some of the Apple’s market shares. But, Apple searched an alternative solution for Kindle Fire and somehow it has succeeded to swallow Kindle Fire dominance in the low-price media Tablet segment. Apple plummeted the price tag of its iPad 2 (starting from $399) in March since the launch of its new iPad.

In Q4 last year, Apple sold 15.4 million Tablets, however, its market share declined to 54.7% in the quarter, down from 61.5% in Q3 of the last year. But, in Q1 of this year, Apple recovered its market share, accounted 62.8% to overall Tablet market share, sold 13.6 million Tablets in the quarter. The demand of iPad increased due to its outstanding sales of its third generation “Retina Display” Tablet. As Apple has grown up its market valuation since last year, it has compelled its investors to think about the capability of the company, whether it could sustain its annual growth rate or not.

As far as operational performance is concern, the company is still performing a better job. Last year, Amazon launched price friendly and portable device, though the device was stuck with lots of shortages, despite it performed outstanding in Q4 last year. The standard has now shifted from bulky size and stressful pricing to portable and budget friendly devices. And Apple is on the way to achieve the target and has decided to launch ‘iPad Mini’, a 7-inch Tablet, for less than $300 coming this fall.

But issue is here, those have already purchased books, movies, music and apps from the Google Play Store will not migrate to other platforms. The reason is pretty clear, if you install all these stuffs (apps, movies and more) from Google Play Store, then you could playback these contents on other Android devices, but if you will switch to other platform, then you will have to renew all these contents. Indeed, it will very tough for Google Nexus 7 Tablet users to switch on iOS platform for 7-inch ‘iPad Mini’ Tablet. We should not underestimate the loyalty of consumers.

Once if you purchase Smartphone, then you will bound with some period of contracts (generally 1-2 years). But, it’s not happening in the case of Tablet, it’s free from all these boundaries. Tablet owners are using the device for smart purposes like email checking, casual gaming, web browsing and media playback. However, Smartphone users can’t switch to other platform within contract periods, but Tablet user can. Google Nexus Tablet is using high-efficient hardware components, but it costs for just $199, and I think, it could lure a significant number of Apple’s iPad users towards its platform and even to new comers.

This time, Apple is experimenting with screen size of its devices. Unlike Android, Apple has always been precautious about the fragmentation of screen size. However, it’s the quality of the company, whenever, it has trailed with something, it has always been proven itself every times. Last year, Apple introduced first time “Siri”, voice recognition personal assistant, later it made iPhone 4S more preferable Smartphone in the last holiday season. But, this time, the condition is somewhat different, it will have to combat with Google and Samsung and really, it’s very difficult to win over these players. Henceforth, Apple needs to work hard in order to sustain its annual growth rate.